For a market with a finite number of agents, pairwise matching, and bargaining, it is shown that, even when the market is frictionless, the equilibrium is not necessarily competitive. It depends on the amount of information agents use. If their behavior is conditioned only on the sets of agents...

We examine the consequences of vote buying, assuming this practice were allowed and free of stigma. Two parties compete in a binary election and may purchase votes in a sequential bidding game via up-front binding payments and/or campaign promises (platforms) that are contingent on the outcome...

A buyer seeks to procure a service and solicits bids from sellers. The cost of the service depends on characteristics that are only known to the buyer ("common values"). The buyer can choose how many bids to solicit and the number of solicited bids cannot be disclosed verifiably. We characterize...